For a full layout of this material, see this e-book:
Supernatural Lights – This is mainly a study of angelic lights, but also takes a look at the shekinah glory of God and demonic lights, for the sake of spiritual discernment. Today, many charismatics and New Agers are seeing supernatural lights, and its important to know how to interpret and respond to them. 36 pages.
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I want to share about “angel sparkles.” My wife and I have been seeing these since 2008 or so, and almost once a week at least. And we have crossed paths with other prophetic people who have seen them too. “Angel sparkles” is the best term that we have been able to come up with to describe this experience. This might be the closest thing in Scripture to it: “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them” (Acts 2:3).
Granted, we’re not seeing any lights shaped like tongues. But they are still fiery lights that appear out of thin air. (You will remember that God–who is made of Spirit like the angels–became a pillar of fire during the Exodus–Exod. 13:21.) And “He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire” (Heb. 1:7). Most of the time, they are bright white little lights that appear out of thin air when we are talking or thinking about theology, God, the Bible, faith, the Christian life, etc. They appear sometimes on Christian books as I read sentences. They appear when my wife or friends talk about Jesus–to highlight that the things we say are inspired by God (when the apparitions come).
Angels are referred to as “lights” and “stars” in the Bible. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (Jas. 1:17). Light is symbolic of illumination, revelation, and knowledge. I believe James was speaking of spiritual gifts–particularly revelation gifts that involve angels, dreams, and visions. There have been times when I have seen angel sparkles in dreams, and also with my eyes closed in inner visions. “While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” (Job 38:7). And this is what they are–they are bright like stars (which makes me wonder about the Star of Bethlehem). Angels are creatures of light. These angel sparkles will appear out of the thin air, while our eyes are open–they look like little Christmas lights (usually white ones, sometimes blue, sometimes orange, etc). They flash like little bright LED lights for one second, like a tiny little camera flash. Most of the time, they are white. They vary in size. For me, most of the time they are no larger than a pinpoint. Sometimes, they are as large as a dime or a quarter. My wife has seen them even larger than this, sometimes in the shape of a mist, spreading out several feet in front of her. They prefer to appear at night, but can appear at any time of day. Lastly, there was that time when Jesus was called “him who holds the seven stars in his right hand” (Rev. 2:1).
In volume 1 (William Ryan’s version), he speaks of the funeral of SAINT AMBROSE (4th c.): “When his body was transported to the cathedral on the night of Easter, a number of baptized children saw the saint. Some of them saw him seated on the episcopal throne, some pointed him out to their parents as he went up to it; still others told how they had seen a star above his body” (p. 234).
Again, another “angel sparkle” occurrence on the martyrdom site of ST. PETER MARTYR (13th c.): “Many religious men and women and numbers of other people have seen lights descending from Heaven over the site of the martyrdom, and have testified that they saw two friars in Dominican habits surrounded by these lights” (p. 260).
In volume 2 there are more examples. Here’s one from SAINT DOMINIC’s infant baptism (13th c.): “When Dominic’s godmother lifted him from the sacred font, it seemed to her that he had on his forehead a brilliant star” (p. 45).
SAINT MARCELLUS (5th c.): “Another night when he was asleep, someone came and awakened him, and, once awake, he saw a star shining in the entrance to his cell. He got up and tried to touch the star, but it quickly moved to another part of the cave, and he followed it until it came to rest over the spot where John the Baptist’s head was buried” (p. 138).
SAINT DENIS’ martyrdom (3rd c.): “Instantly the body of Saint Dionysius stood up, took his head in its arms, and, with an angel and a heavenly light leading the way, marched two miles” (p. 240).
UPDATE: 5/25/14
In light of Robert’s comment below, I find it an interesting possibility that visions of multi-colored angel sparkles could be a New Testament version of the high priest’s breastplate in the Old Testament. Each of the twelve tribes of Israel had a special stone color, with a special symbolic significance. If angels attempt to communicate to us through colors, at least we have a precedent: God has laid down a pattern of certain colors having a prophetic significance in the Bible. And with Jesus as our High Priest (Heb. 7:24-26), it would make sense that Christians, who are all priests by faith (1 Pet. 2:5), would have angelic ministering spirits, to communicate revelation to the saints by means of those same colors which had significance to the priests of the Old Testament.
UPDATE: 8/13/23
ST. COLUMBA (d. 597): “A great heavenly light was seen to shine above him by several of the brethren on separate occasions, both at night and in broad daylight…poised over the face of the sleeping child was a fiery ball of light…I saw a very bright column of fiery light going in front of the man of God whom you despise, and holy angels as his companions…how great and special were his experiences of angelic visits and heavenly light…the place where his bones rest is still visited by the light of Heaven and by numbers of angels” (Adomnan of Iona, Life of St. Columba, pp. 110, 206-07, 233).
Both Robert Fleming, the Covenanter biographer, and Adomnan saw “angel sparkles,” or “bright lights,” or “heavenly lights” as angelic manifestations, and as closely associated with open visions of angels. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (Jas. 1:17). It seems “HEAVENLY LIGHTS” is the more Biblical and traditional expression. The Golden Legend also uses the phrases HEAVENLY LIGHTS and STARS for this phenomenon: not “angel sparkles,” which admittedly sounds a bit irreverent, casual, or overly familiar. Also, the “very bright column of fiery light” mentioned above makes me think of Exodus 13:21: “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.”
ST. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN (d. 1022) – Greek Orthodox: The unique thing about St. Symeon is that he is not having visions of angelic lights, but visions of the shekinah glory of God (or kabod), or seeing the light of the Holy Spirit. He also writes a lot about why he believes this to be so; and that the practice of contemplation (or hesychasm) leads to this glorious experience of God’s light. His biographer said that Symeon saw “the Holy Spirit as an infinite and formless light descending upon him…he lost all awareness of his surroundings and forgot that he was in a house…he saw nothing but light all around.” He said that the light would come at different times, like when he was reading theology, standing before the icon of Mary (as a Protestant I can’t quite agree with that), praying the Trisagion, and while worshiping God with the Lord’s Supper. “Symeon speaks of the light waxing and waning, appearing first as a star, then growing until it is like the sun in brilliance, and finally once again withdrawing”; and he describes it as “the energy and power of His all-Holy Spirit, in other words, His light.”
He also believed it was possible to experience transfiguration in this life, just like Jesus did on the Mount of Transfiguration, where the apostles saw His glory (Luke 9:32). He said, “I partook of the light, yea and became light, beyond every passion and outside every evil.” His Biblical support for Christians being able to experience transfiguration comes from John 17:22: “The glory which You gave me I have given them.” Turning from his own personal experience of divine light, he turns to the Bible and the Desert Fathers for further confirmation: the pillar of fire (Exod. 13:21), the glory of God that filled the temple of Solomon (1 Kings 8:10-11), the vision of Isaiah 6:1-5, glory in Ezekiel 10:18-22; 11:22-23; and 43:1-5, the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant (Exod. 19; Lev. 10:1-3; 16:2; 2 Sam. 6:4-7), Moses‘ encounters with it (Exod. 24:5), and esp. 34:29-35, which says in v. 30, “When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.” Then we have the example of when Jesus appeared in light to Paul on the road to Damascus, blinding him and knocking him off his horse (Acts 9:3-4), Stephen saw the glory of God before he was martyred (Acts 7:55), the glory of God is said to give visible light to New Jerusalem (Rev. 15:8; 21:23), and Paul says that Christians contemplate and then see the glory of God in a vision: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding (contemplating, katoptrizomai) as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Like most theologians, he believed the Acts 2:3 tongues of fire were the light of the Holy Spirit, and not angels, as I have theorized based on Hebrews 1:7. After Scripture, he turned to the Desert Fathers as preaching the same things about the light: Arsenius was apparently seen engulfed in the fire of the Holy Spirit, Abba Silvanus saw the glory of God and was transfigured by it, Abba Sisoes died while in the glory of God’s light, and once when Abba Joseph was asked how to be saved, he “stood up and stretched out his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.'” Isaac of Syria was one of Symeon’s heroes, and he said that usually the glory of God is seen with closed eyes in prayer–closed, interior visions in the mind–but sometimes it can be seen with the physical eyes (Alexander Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 3, pp. 81-102).
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (d. 1230). “The people of Assisi were horrified to see in the distance St. Mary of the Angels and the entire forest around it enveloped in flames. They rushed up the hill, hoping to put out the blaze before everything was lost. But upon arriving at the little church, they found nothing amiss. No church on fire. No forest ablaze. Nothing. Entering the church they discovered Francis, Clare, and others ‘sitting around that very humble table, rapt in God by contemplation and invested with power from on high.’ They then realized that the fire they had seen was not a material fire, but a spiritual fire. The blaze they saw was ‘to symbolize the fire of divine love which was burning in the souls’ of these simple servants of Christ” (Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water, p. 101).
ROBERT BRUCE (d. 1631) – Covenanter: “Fleming also mentions angelic visitations, the audible voice of God, bright lights appearing in the darkness, physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit in meetings…” (Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, p. 76; Robert Fleming, The Fulfilling of the Scripture, pp. 416, 418-19, 432, 437-40).
UPDATE: 8/13/23
SOLOMON STODDARD (d. 1729) was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards; and the forerunner of the Great Awakening that occurred under Edwards’ ministry and preaching. The circular light peeking out behind the pillar in his pastor’s study is apparently an angelic light, symbolizing the revelation, illumination, or enlightenment, that Stoddard had received from the Holy Spirit and the angels. The mere fact that something like this was painted in Stoddard’s pastoral portrait, in color, shows that Stoddard must have not only seen, but believed in manifestations of angelic light orbs, and had taken them seriously.
WILLIAM BRANHAM (c. 1950). Temporarily operating in one of the most revolutionary prophetic healing ministries in modern Pentecostalism, he cooperated with trinitarian Pentecostals from the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, Gordon Lindsay, Stanley Frodsham, and Oral Roberts, from 1947 to the early 1950s. He was a straight shooter in these years and not associated with heretical doctrines. In 1950, an angelic light was caught on camera above his head while he was preaching, just like the portrait of Solomon Stoddard. They called this angel the “Pillar of Fire” (C. Douglas Weaver’s The Healer-Prophet, pp. 72-75). Unfortunately, Branham had a falling out with Lindsay, whom had a stabilizing effect on his theology–and he eventually taught heresies in the 1960s.
Chronologically, it looks like the following saints have seen angelic lights:
1. 33 A.D. – The 120 on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:3).
2. 3rd century – People who saw the martyrdom of St. Denis.
3. 4th century – Children at the funeral of St. Ambrose.
4. 5th century – Pseudo-Dionysius: saw James 1:17 as angel lights (Cel.Hier. ch. 1).
5. 5th century – St. Marcellus guided by angelic light to the head of John the Baptist.
6. 6th century – St. Columba saw many angelic lights in his life.
7. 11th century – St. Symeon saw the shekinah glory of God many times.
8. 13th century – When St. Dominic was “baptized” as a baby.
9. 13th century – Many people by the martyrdom site of St. Peter Martyr.
10. 17th century – Robert Bruce (Covenanter) saw lights appear in the dark.
11. 18th century – Solomon Stoddard (Puritan) has an angelic orb in his portrait.
12. 20th century – William Branham, during the height of his healing ministry, and his cooperation with trinitarian Pentecostals like Gordon Lindsay, had a picture taken of him in 1950 of an angelic bar of light that appeared over his head, which he called the “pillar of fire.” Tragically, in the ’60s, Branham later apostatized and entertained heresies.
13. 20th century – John Paul Jackson (Vineyard / IHOP) taught about angel lights in 1997: this was published later on a CD called Naturally Supernatural and dramatized on It’s Supernatural.
14. 21st century – Larry Randolph (IHOP / Morningstar) said of angels, “You might also see a momentary flash of light out of the corner of your eye or shimmering colors that come and go around you” (Spirit Talk, Morningstar Publications, 2005, p. 34).
15. 21st century – Many charismatics today commenting below on “Angel Sparkles.”
UPDATE: 12/1/18
Ghost Lights: Familiar Spirits and Will-o’-the-Wisps
See this article from gotquestions.org. It addresses the popular conception of “orbs” as they are often photographed by ghost hunters or paranormal investigators or caught on video in graveyards and haunted houses. In such a scenario, these are demons which the Bible calls “familiar spirits,” which pretend to be the ghosts of the dead, and communicate with mediums and pagan psychics. The idea of ghosts comes from witchcraft, the occult, the New Age, psychics, spiritualism, and mediums. Although it is a popular belief and there are many horror stories, movies, and TV shows about this subject, the Bible makes it quite clear that such things are demonic. Isaiah 8:19-20: “When they say to you, ‘Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.” Leviticus 19:31: “Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.”
In folklore, these orbs are also called ghost lights, will-o’-the-wisps, and even jack-o’-lanterns. I have had three experiences with ghost lights that were demonic. They were not in graveyards, but they did occur on roads that were near graveyards, and near a building where a psychic operated her business. They appeared at times when I was coming under spiritual attack from people on my job. Sometimes when the devil tries to increase his attacks on Christians, you might see an increase of haunting type activities like this. The will-o’-the-wisps that I saw were only designed to scare me and distract me while I was driving to work at night as a security guard. They appeared as large, flying white lights in the sky and would follow me as a drove, about a hundred feet in front of me in the sky, so that I could see them through my windshield as I was driving. They appeared in the sky above cloud cover, like they were hiding in the clouds. They might make you think they are drones or searchlights at first, but when you notice they have no long beams and the fast speed at which they travel, then you will know they are evil spirits. They are historically associated among the Irish as a type of fairy. They have nothing to do with the Gospel, the Bible, or God. They are just ghostly apparitions that leave you afraid or confused. They are territorial spirits I think, because once I left the town of Marietta, Georgia, they stopped following me. Another wisp appeared like a flashlight on a hill at a site I was doing my security rounds at; and when I looked to see, nobody was there. Its a ghostly, haunting experience, and the devil is playing pranks on you, trying to make you afraid or shocked: just be sure to command it to leave you alone in Jesus’ name! The folk stories from the 1800s indicate that will-o’-the-wisps are deceptive demonic lights that capture the attention and mislead their followers down a wrong path, one that leads to danger or trouble.
But don’t let this turn you away from the fact that angelic lights have appeared to Christian saints in the past, and have highlighted thoughts, messages, and revelations which confirm the Bible and the Gospel. Bear in mind that demons and angels alike are ontologically the same type of creatures (spirits, or intelligent conscious beings made of light, 2 Cor. 11:14): its just that demons will always contradict thoughts and concepts that are of the Bible, lordship salvation, and conservative evangelical theology: whereas true angels will confirm these Biblical truths. Demonic lights abound everywhere: in haunted houses and graveyards (spiritualism), UFOs, Hindu gurus (Hinduism), the New Apostolic Reformation (antinomian and universalist charismatics), witches (as fairies), etc. The only legitimate angelic sparkle is one that confirms ORTHODOX THEOLOGY, such as the pre-Reformation Catholic saints, the Covenanters (the Reformation), Solomon Stoddard (Puritanism), and possibly John Paul Jackson. Concepts and thoughts that are enforced by spirits outside the pale of evangelicalism are simply “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1).
UPDATE: 7/13/23
Watch out for occasional language, but the B movie sci-fi film The Day Time Ended (1980) has many scenes which portray the demonic type of light: the will-o-the-wisp, or the ghost light, or the UFO orb. These scenes line up very closely with the demonic experiences I had in 2018. Certain UFO episodes on Unsolved Mysteries portray these as well.
UPDATE: 8/13/23 – THE DEMONIC LIGHTS OF A FALSE PROPHET?
B. H. IRWIN (d. 1926). The founder of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, and the Pentecostal Holiness Church, was a Wesleyan evangelist who walked with questionable integrity for a few years, but when tribulation and temptation came his way, he fell away from the faith, or at least was publicly exposed. Apparently in 1900 he was spotted drunk with a cigar coming out of a bar; and in 1902, he was found publicly knockout drunk in Kansas City and was brought in by the police (Vinson Synan and Daniel Woods, Fire Baptized, p. 79; “Downfall of a Pastor,” Washington Republican, Feb 14, 1902). In this sense, Irwin was similar to Branham and other healing revivalists who came later. But the failures of this fallen prophet, I believe, are no argument against what happened during his evangelistic meetings when he was walking the straight and narrow. During an Oklahoma holiness meeting in 1895, when he was seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he said he felt that he was “literally on fire…the walls of the room seemed to be on fire,” and he saw “a luminous seven-fold light” in which “everything seemed to be on fire–actually burning, blazing, glowing.” Other people who attended his prayer meetings had said, “they felt the fire burning in their souls…burning in their bodies…it was felt in the tongue, in the fingers, in the palm of the hand, in the feet, in the side, in the arms, and so on. Then the Bible itself often felt warm to those who had the fire in them. The church would seem to be lighted with fire, the trees of the wood would appear as flames of fire, the landscape would seem to be baptized in the glory of the fire” (Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition, p. 52). This is very similar to the experience of St. Francis mentioned above. If anything, these were probably examples of the shekinah glory, or the light of the Holy Spirit, and not angelic lights…or maybe the whole thing was DEMONIC, who knows? Its sounds painful, like a kundalini awakening: people physically burning like that. It was later said that Irwin’s life “for many years alternated between the pulpit and the harlot’s house. He would go from the pulpit to wallow with prostitutes the rest of the night. During that time he was preaching fiercely against wearing neckties, eating pork, and drinking coffee” (Vinson Synan and Daniel Woods, Fire Baptized, p. 80). Since Irwin was born in 1854–it means he was 46 years old in 1900 when he was exposed for his drunkenness and adultery (W. Glenn Jonas, Religious Traditions of North Carolina, p. 96). Although this is no excuse, it does lend credence to the notion that a pastor should be an “elder” or senior citizen, especially a man in his 80s, who has lost most of his sex drive (1 Tim. 5:17).
UPDATE: 4/6/23
Angel Sparkles Mentioned by Major Angel Author
(John Wester Anderson, In the Arms of Angels, pgs. 219-220)
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UPDATE: 8/4/23
I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light…Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it…They sparkled like topaz…sparkling like crystal…brilliant light surrounded him (Ezekiel 1:4, 13, 16, 22, 27).
WesleyGospel.com 
I have also experienced these same lights as you said. While reading, sharing the word, in prayer and in a dream as well.
All my life I have seen a dome around me… As if protecting me. Tonight I saw that dome but this time it looked like a supernova, every color, moving as if it were the reflection of the water at the bottom of a pool. It was beautiful and brought me so much peace from the Father. It was a messenger from Him. While praying I had scripture playing on my bible app, I was prompted to ask, so I asked Him what do you want me to do? He put my focus on the scripture that was playing.
For he clung to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.
2 Kings 18:6 NASB1995
So are blue sparkley lights from god or demonic?
I depends on when they are appearing. If they appear during a Christian thought, then its probably an angel confirming some Bible truth. But if they appear during a non-Christian thought, or some New Age thought, then its a trick of the devil. “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
Thank you. This is helpful in deciphering the intentions behind these sparkly lights.